Fire engines respond to a blaze at Mondelez

At around 6.30am two fire engines responded to a call of a blaze at the Mondelez food processing plant on Ruscote Avenue in Banbury.

Fires could be seen on the upper floors of the main coffee processing tower when fire crews arrived.

Additional help was needed to allow high rise firefighting procedures to be implemented and at its peak there were Oxfordshire fire engines and specialist appliances from Banbury, Deddington, Bicester, Eynsham, Kidlington, Oxford as well as fire engines from Warwickshire, Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire.

Fire crews wearing breathing apparatus located the fire in one of the coffee dryers and activated the in built sprinkler system to extinguish the fire, bringing it under control.

Group Manager Rob MacDougall said ‘This is a very complex site with systems in place to assist us when a fire occurs.

“The risk plan for the site which is developed between us and the site management has proved essential to deal with this incident as safely and effectively as we have.

“Never the less, our crews have worked extremely hard in arduous conditions to limit any damage: running out lengths of fire hose in full protective clothing is never easy but when this involves staircases and warm weather, is really tests the physical conditions of the crews. Everybody worked extremely hard.”